20 Common Animation Terms #1

First group of 20 COMMON ANIMATION TERMS! Another new series a quick introduction to the most used animation terms you’ll hear in production…so…if you’re new to this world… don’t get caught unprepared! 😛

ACCENTS

MODEL SHEET

INBETWEEN/TWEENING

GHOSTING

PLACEHOLDER

SETTLE

OVERSHOOT

ANIMATION LAYER

STRAIGHT AHEAD

BREAKING JOINTS

CYCLE/LOOP

FISH EYES (in posing)

SAFE ACTION/AREA

OVERLAPPING ACTION

MOTION BLUR

SNAPPY ANIMATION

MOTION CAPTURE – MOCAP

FK – IK (FORWARD AND INVERSE KINEMATICS)

FADE IN / FADE OUT

EXTREMES

#iWantToBeAnAnimator #Animation #Terms #Beginner

-ANIMATION TERMS-

This is part of a long series! Is a quick overview of the main ANIMATION TERMS you’ll get used to hear in production and is important to know what we are talking about! Let’s start this first group of 20 COMMON ANIMATION TERMS!

ACCENTS during an acting we have some accents on some moments that we have to emphasize with the expressions and body movements! This are the strongest part of the animation!

MODEL SHEET Is a final collection of guidelines for a character design.
They show the structure, appearance, proportions, poses and attitude of the character and works as guide for all the artists!

INBETWEEN/TWEENING in 3D is the generation of the interpolation created by the software between two poses. The software creates this morphing between poses that the animator can modify adjust if needed!

GHOSTING you can use some tools to create a visualization of your animation through the scene, showing all the poses frame by frame

PLACEHOLDER In animation we use to add placeholders in the scene for the assets that are not finished or still need to be totally designed and they will be substitute in a second time!

SETTLE Add a settle to avoid an abrupt stop! When you finish an action you can use the following frames to add a settle in order to smooth the transition to a resting pose!

OVERSHOOT A settle is usually anticipated by an overshoot, an animation that exceed the end value. In maya we can also achieve this effects with the spline tangent that automatically overshoots the neighboring keyframe value!

ANIMATION LAYER You can create multiple layers for your animation:
the primary movement is in the base animation layer and you can create a new layers for secondary movements!

STRAIGHT AHEAD One of the possible workflow when we approach animation, is when you create the key poses of your animation forward in the timeline, one after the other following the sequence order!

BREAKING JOINTS break and bend joints to add flexibility, to make the movement more appealing and creates nice arcs… going out from the limits of the realism!

CYCLE/LOOP An animation that repeats as an infinite loop, often used in walks and runs animations! To properly work the first and last key poses must be exactly the same!

FISH EYES (in posing) when we position the eyes too far apart, creating this fish like look that it’s not really expressive, except if this is required for a specifyc character or situation

SAFE ACTION/AREA Is a guideline you can turn on in your view settings to keep all the actions clearly visible within this area when they will be displayed on TV screen

OVERLAPPING ACTION Some parts lead the movement and others follow the action, the leading part moves with a specific timing and other moves in a different one!

MOTION BLUR Is the effect of blurring objects during a movement, more is the change between positions, more is the blurred effects! In Maya you can automatically add this effect and enable it from the Render Settings!

SNAPPY ANIMATION is an animation style characterized by strong contrast between slow/fast movements, the character “snaps” from a very appealing pose to another in a fast transition!

MOTION CAPTURE – MOCAP Is the registration of the movements created by a real actor and transferred to the digital character through markers placed on the actor’s suit!

FK – IK (FORWARD AND INVERSE KINEMATICS) FK is a chain of joints where a parent moves the other ones following the hierarchy. With IK the child in the hierarchy is not influenced by the parents!

FADE IN / FADE OUT A transition at the beginning of a scene from a black image that gradually brighten or gradually darkens at the end

EXTREMES The more important keys/poses during an animation,
Examples: the starting and the ending keys/poses of a WALK, or the extreme positions of a movement!

This is all for this first 20 Animation Terms and I invite you to write me in the comments if you have some Terms to suggest so that I can increase my list! Subscribe to the channel if you like and support my project of free Animation Lessons and Tutorials by leaving a LIKE and SHARE my videos! see you for the next one!